Chinese Actors Play Muscle Role in Construction Gig

Unemployed actors find work in crowd control for new subway line.

BEIJING – Roughly 200 out of work Chinese movie actors recently took day jobs as protection for a construction crew building a new subway line in a capital suburb, local media reported on Wednesday.

Picked up from the gates of the Beijing Film Studio on morning of June 17, the crowd of male aspiring movie extras was taken by bus to the Beijing suburb of Fengtai where they were paid roughly 60 yuan ($9.23) for a day’s work warding off aggravated locals, news portal Sina.com said.

Land disputes abound in China as the economy promotes real estate and infrastructure development even as some Chinese wish to stay closer to their land or demand greater compensation if they are forced to move.

Villagers in Fengtai delayed work on a new subway line, believing developers were trying to rip them off, according to the Sina report.

Actors bussed to Fengtai joined local police and officials in a force of more than 1,000 men to face down the protestors’ human chain until they were pushed aside, Sina said.